The Sacrifices We Make
by percabethandhg
Summary: When Harry disappeared on his quest for the horcruxes, he left not only Ginny, but the unborn baby that neither of them knew about. When Harry gives up and comes home to the Burrow seven months later, he learns of his child. After a baby girl is born, Harry pays a terrible price to save not only Ginny and the baby, but his parents as well.
1. Prologue

_**It's Alethea here, and this is a story about my second-favorite ship, Harry/Ginny. Please enjoy, favorite, follow, and review. I'll post chapters as often as possible!**_

"Ginny!"

A warm hand is on my shoulder, and it catches me as I nearly fall to the cobbled street. Then the hand is in mine, leading me toward a ramshackle old building out on the edge of the hustle and bustle of the town.

It was only a three-minute walk, I could see the little shack from the square, but it's cold and I'm wearing only my thin cotton nightgown. Once we're inside the tiny building, I see that it's bigger than I perceived, and it has a bed, a wooden table with uneven legs, and a flameless fireplace. Harry closes the door behind me, securing all three bolts so they click audibly. I stand in the entryway, still clutching the parcel of blankets to my choice.

"Sit." He gestures toward the sheetless bed. The mattress is thin and the springs creak so loudly that Harry flinches as he pulls a small box from his pocket. There's a scratching while a flame bursts to life and I realize the box contained several sticks of wood, matches, the muggles call them. I'm grateful for the fire that springs up, engulfing the logs in the fireplace.

Craving the warmth, I leave the bed and sink to my knees in front of the dancing flames. Harry sits next to me, his arm automatically snaking around my shoulder. He pulls back a corner of the blanket and smiles at the little face looking back at me.

"I'm glad Persi is ok. I was worried she wouldn't make it here."

That comment forces me to acknowledge my ignorance. "Harry, where are we?"

"Godric's Hollow," he informs me solemnly.

"Why can't we stay in a hotel instead of," I glance around at the surfaces that are all covered in a layer of dirt, "here. I don't know if this is sanitary for Persi."

"I'm sorry." He must notice my fear of this dirty, unknown place. "We have to be careful We...we can't be seen."

"Why not?"

"Because this is October 29th, 1980."

-let me know what you think, and if I should post another chapter.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Alethea here! I was so happy that so many read this in such a short time! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for the follows! I'm hoping to post a new chapter every day, so make sure to keep checking in!**_

"I wish you didn't have to go," I say quietly into the dark. My auburn curls are splayed on Harry's bare chest and his newly-cut fingernails brush my shoulder gently.

"I know," he replies, his voice slow and soft. His warm palm presses flat against my shoulder, squeezing it. "I don't want to leave."

"So stay here with me," I offer quickly. "Let Ron and Hermione hunt down the horcruxes and just stay here with me forever."

"Right here? Forever?" he asks, laughter creeping its way into his content voice. "My arm would fall asleep."

"Sorry," I apologize hastily, moving so I'm laying next to him on the mattress, my face at an upward angle so I can see him. "But I'm serious-"

"You're not Sirius, you're Ginny," he interrupts, laughing softly.

I shove my shoulder against his. "Come on, we're having a serious conversation. This is important."

"You know it's just a fantasy... I have to go," he reminds me.

"I know. But I don't want you to," I repeat. I fidget slightly as I fall silent again. We both know that he can't stay. We've known that for the two weeks that we've all be home from Hogwarts, and still, we can't actually break up. We can't stop kissing, holding hands, acting like a couple, despite the fact that it's dangerous for both of us. "I love you."

"I know. I love you, too," he responds instantly. "When I come back…"

"Yeah," is all I can say back. We don't dare plan for after he gets back because everything is so uncertain. This is a war, a real war now, and there will be casualties. Harry and I could both be casualties. "Just try not to die."

He laughs a little. "I'll try my very hardest," he promises.

Then we just lay there for a while, the only sound our relaxed breathing. I lay my head back on his chest as I fall asleep.

When Harry and I go downstairs together the next morning, no one says anything. I know that everyone feels bad that Harry's going to be gone. I know I do.

It's three more perfect days of skinny dipping in the little lake, of lounging around the house, of just lying in the gnome-ridden backyard together. At least we're the first half of the romance movie before we become the second half.

But then comes the goodbye. The dreaded goodbye.

"Ginny…"

"I know." I know that he needs to leave, but why? Why can't he just stay here with me?

"You know how much I want to stay here."

"Mhm."

He just keeps saying it, as though it makes it any better. As though it means he can stay. But he doesn't.

"Ginny, you've got to let me go," he whispers, stroking my hair as I cling to him, preventing him from leaving.

"I know," I tell him. I don't let go, I can't let go.

"Goodbye, Gin." He gives me one last hug before stepping away, swinging his bag back onto his shoulder. "I promise I'll come back. I love you."

"Love you, too."

I watch him go, walking between Ron and Hermione to the edge of the protective bubble around the Burrow. He turns around and gives me a sad little wave before they all apparate away from me, possibly forever.

"It's ok, Ginny," Fred says, without a joke for once in his life. "He'll come back, and Voldemort will be gone, and you'll live happily ever after."

"Thanks." I let him wrap his arm around me as I stare sadly at the place where my boyfriend vanished.

This is a horrible feeling. How could things possibly get any worse?

-Ok, so it was kinda slow, but let me know what you think and please remember to favorite, follow, and review!


	3. Chapter 2

_**Hey, it's Alethea! Wow, over a hundred views! Thank you guys so, so, so much! Here's chapter 3! Make sure to favorite, follow, and review!**_

But things do get worse.

"I EFFING HATE THROWING UP!" I shout at Luna. It's September and I'm back at school. It was weird to take the train without Harry. It would have been nice for Harry and I to have our own compartment, to make out on the way to school, to hold hands in the hallways on the way to potions class.

But instead, Harry's off god knows where doing god knows what to kill Voldemort. And I'm in the girls' restroom, throwing up for the third time this week.

"You don't have a fever," she tells me airily, bending to feel my forehead as I kneel over the toilet. "Maybe it's a gringlehopper."

"A what?" I ask before shoving my face back into the bowl. Regurgitated eggs and bacon aren't pretty.

"A gringlehopper," she repeats. "It's a purple and yellow spotted bug that burrows in your sinuses and triggers vomiting. Oh, and diarrhea. Do you have diarrhea?"

"Not that I know of," I tell her. I back away from the full toilet and lean my head against the wall of the stall, sitting on my butt with my knees pulled up to my chest. "I don't think it's a jinglehopper."

"Gringlehopper," she corrects. "Maybe you have the flu."

"I don't think so." I take a deep breath. "I'm not achy or anything."

"Maybe you have dragon pox," Luna suggests. She folds her hands in front of her, standing in the doorway of the open stall. We're in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, so no one else is bothering us.

"No pox," I remind her, holding up my arms to show that they're not decorated with the red and green pox frequently associated with dragon pox. "Do you think I should go to Madam Pomfrey? Maybe it's an elfin virus."

"I know what's wrong with her," Moaning Myrtle says, floating over us on her back, her voice slow and amused. "And you don't want to tell Madam Pomfrey!"

"Go away, Myrtle," I hiss at her, closing my eyes and taking another breath.

"If you say so…" she flips over, then falls into the stall, sitting on the toilet seat. I can still see my own vomit through her ghostly form. That thought makes me nauseas again. "Don't you want to know what's wrong with you? I know what's wrong with you."

"Stop saying something's wrong with me!" I groan, running my fingers through my hair. I knock my head back against the plastic wall, shaking the whole bathroom structure. "I still feel sick. Help me up, I've got Care of Magical Creatures class in ten minutes."

"Goodbye." Myrtle floats away through the walls, cackling evilly.

"Ginny," Luna says while we walk down the stone hallway, "maybe Myrtle did know what's wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong with me!" I shout at her, causing several heads to turn toward me.

With that, I throw up again, this time on the floor in front of everyone.

McGonagall was part of the crowd who watched my public humiliation, and she makes me go to see Madam Pomfrey, despite my protests.

"Ms. Weasley, I believe it's painfully obvious what you're ailment is," she says solemnly, bringing a clipboard in hand, her quill flying across the paper of its own accord.

"What is it?" I ask, sinking back into the chair she made me sit in.

"You appear to be…pregnant."

"Excuse me?" I laugh. She doesn't join me. "No, that can't be right."

"So, you aren't sexually active?" she asks, eyebrows raised.

"Well, I mean, not…" I take a deep breath, remembering good days with Harry last summer, just us in the treehouse in the woods behind my house. "Not anytime recently."

"It appears that the last time you were, you conceived a baby," she informs me, as though I don't know perfectly well just how babies are made. "When do you assume that you got pregnant?"

"I don't know." I try to think. "Maybe…um…I don't know. June, I suppose."

"That makes you nearly three months pregnant, Ms. Weasley!" She crosses her arms angrily. "I'm extremely disappointed in you and- who's the father?"

I hesitate, unsure of whether to tell or not. Harry tried to break up with me to protect me. How would he feel if word got around that he has a child that the Death Eaters can use to hurt him? Will he hate me if he hears about the baby from someone else? It's an accident, this baby, and what if he doesn't want me to keep it? How am I supposed to know either way if I can't talk to him?

Do I even want to have a baby on my own? What if Harry dies and I'm all alone with the baby forever? What if I have to be a single mother?

"I…" I bite my lip nervously.

"You do know, don't you, Ms. Weasley?" she looks scandalized over the possible fact that I've been sleeping with so many people that I don't even know the identity of my baby's father.

"No, I know who it is, I just…" I start to sniffle. Finally, I whisper, "It's Harry Potter."

"It's who?" she asks, her eyebrows raised.

"The father of my baby is my boyfriend, Harry Potter," I say loudly. "I'm having Harry Potter's baby."

It turns out that despite Madam Pomfrey's disapproval, it's even harder to tell my family.

"Mum, Dad, I have…something to tell you," I say slowly. Professor McGonagall called my parents to school, to inform them before we have to tell the headmaster. God, I can just imagine how Snape will mock me for being pregnant with Harry Potter's baby out of wedlock.

"Yes, Ginny, dear?" my mother asks, sitting on the edge of one of the armchairs in McGonagall's office.

"Mum, I'm pregnant," I spit out. "With…with Harry's baby, and I want to keep it."

"Ginny, dear, I don't know if that's an option," my father replies softly. "You're not just pregnant, you're pregnant with Harry Potter's baby. That instantly makes you and the baby a target."

"It's still my baby," I remind them. "I'll protect him, or her, with my life."

"Still, Ginny," Mum adds. "Once you start showing, people are going to inquire about the father, and I don't know if you should tell them. Maybe you should leave Hogwarts and come live at home."

"If that means I can keep my baby," I agree.

 _ **-Let me know what you think, and remember to favorite, follow, and review!**_


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